Posted by
glen e. p. ropella-2 on
May 05, 2010; 12:14am
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Behaviorism-tp5003979p5006544.html
I'm changing the subject line again because this is _not_ in direct
lineage with the [Beat Poet] thread.
Nicholas Thompson wrote circa 10-05-04 02:36 PM:
> Most of the questions you ask are orthogonal to behaviorism/mentalism.
>
> Children are a special case because they cannot give consent. But notice
> that the whole question of the Treatment Program you described arises
> because the State and The Guardians of the children are at odds as to
> whether the treatment is cruelty. So everybody is using behavioral
> criteria.
Sorry, I was working under the idea that "cruelty" was a purely mental
construct. It seems to me that a cruel act is one where, in general,
the actor disregards the thoughts and feelings of the acted upon (actee)
and, especially, where the thoughts and feelings of the actee are the
Spinozan "Sadness" (i.e. the hypothetical mind is in a worse state after
the thoughts/feelings). Granted, the vernacular use of "cruel" has
connotations of deriving pleasure from actions that cause the "Sadness";
but that's not necessary. I think it's sufficient for the actor to
_know_ they're causing "Sadness", even if the actor (rightly or wrongly)
believes that "Sadness" is somehow arithmetically (economically)
compensated for by a greater "Joy" that will ensue from the actions.
The essence of my naive understanding of Behaviorism is: "Take whatever
tangible actions work and the intangibles will take care of themselves."
Of course, _if_ a novel tangible arises, the Behaviorist _will_ take it
into account. But it still leaves the Behaviorist open to the criticism
that she intentionally, knowingly takes actions that cause "Sadness".
I don't mean to descend into the semantics of "cruelty". I'm just
trying to show why I don't think the criticism of the JRC's methods and
the JRC's response are orthogonal to the mentalism <-> behaviorism axis.
It seems that some people hold the short-term mental state of the actees
in higher esteem than the JRC. I.e. the JRC are more purely
behaviorist. (And if we take them at their word, the JRC isn't
intentionally cruel and their methods do, indeed, work.)
> Adults are the more interesting case: is it cruelty when an adult signs on
> for it? Is sending a volunteer to war, cruel? Is sending a conscript to
> war, cruel? If I ask to have me teeth worked on without anaesthetic, is
> the doctor who performs the procedure cruel?
Like I say above, I'm not trying to _parse_ the word "cruel" so much as
I'm trying to get at the extent to which a Behaviorist (a real one...
not some ideologically stereotyped one) considers the thoughts and
emotions of her subject. A clarifying question might be something like:
When the actee tells the (behaviorist) Dentist to drill out the root of
a tooth without anesthetic, does the Dentist explain in very clear
terms: "You will FEEL pain and probably hate me afterwards."?? Or does
the Dentist ignore such intangibles (except to the extent they have to
strap the patient down more firmly ;-) and merely state the actions
she'll take?
(My dad could've been described as a behaviorist when he'd hit me after
behaving badly. He didn't much care what I thought or felt as long as I
stopped behaving badly. [grin])
> The only place where my behaviorism might have a role to play in such a
> discussion is where i would deny to the "victim" the right to disavow his
> own pain. I would argue that I have my own responibility to decide
> whether a man is in pain, even if he claims he is not, and to make an
> ethical decision accordingly.
This seems too coarse to me. Clearly, if the actor understands more
about the cause-effect behaviors than the actee, then the actor gets to
decide whether the "Sadness" is fully compensated by the subsequent
"Joy" effected. But, regardless of that, how much _respect_ does the
behaviorist actor give to the subjective experience of the actee?
This is very important in situations like Alzheimer's disease or pain
management, where we have no credible treatments to actually fix the
problem. We only have treatments to treat the symptoms, for example the
epiphenomenal thoughts and feelings of the subject.
Do behaviorists subscribe to concepts like pain management? Do
behaviorists participate in treatments like end-of-life hospice care?
Or do they restrict themselves to actions that have been credibly shown
to "fix" behavior?
--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095,
http://agent-based-modeling.com============================================================
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